


Reading Days

by Persian Slipper (Luthe)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Childhood, Children's Stories, Gen, Holmes Brothers, Reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 06:41:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthe/pseuds/Persian%20Slipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Stories that you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you’ll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely visit.” ~M is for Magic, Neil Gaiman</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reading Days

When he was very young (before he discovered chemistry textbooks), Sherlock liked to read _stories_. Not the puerile fairy tales the other children his age enjoyed, but books with real stories. His parents allowed him run of the library, knowing he would never damage anything so valuable as a book, while Mycroft looked on with indulgent big brother fondness. Sometimes, Sherlock even consented to let Mycroft read to him, provided Mycroft did the voices of the characters.

It was easy to tell which story Sherlock had read most recently. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe had him searching every closet in the house for a portal to Narnia. The Hobbit caused him to create a dragon’s hoard in his room, full of spare change, loose buttons, and any other shiny thing left alone long enough for him to take it. He also insisted on walking everywhere barefoot, brandishing a stick he called Sting. A month later, he had switched the stick for a towel, just in case he suddenly found himself travelling the galaxy.

His favorites were undoubtedly Agatha Christie’s mysteries and Treasure Island. He declared he would be a detective like Hercule Poirot when he grew up, if he wasn’t a pirate instead. The house rang for months with cries of “Ahoy, matey!” interspersed with rudimentary attempts at deduction. Mycroft encouraged the latter, teaching Sherlock how to observe everything and make sense of it all.

Though he’d never admit it, even to Mycroft, the book he loved the most was Matilda. He knew what it was to be smarter than (almost) everyone around him and the many ways he could suffer for it. His parents tried to send him to primary school, but the other children called him a freak and the teacher couldn’t keep him engaged for more than a few minutes. The playmates his parents arranged for him inevitably taunted him and destroyed whatever books or samples he brought to show them. Adults avoided him, not sure how to interact with a child who keep up with their conversations and read their secrets just by looking at them. After every rejection, Sherlock would sit in his room and reread his battered copy of Matilda, hoping today would be the day he finally managed to lift a pencil with his mind. It never worked and he eventually abandoned fiction altogether, preferring the ordered world of textbooks and research journals.

If John ever wondered why there was a much-abused copy of Matilda on the bookshelf in the sitting room, he never asked.


End file.
